My cousin gave me my first computer. It was a 286 and it didn't work. I think it had a
green monitor. I took it apart and went to the local computer junk store and found a
motherboard and card with some phone lines. I asked the guy what it was and he said it lets
your computer call other computers. That was an unheard of concept to me. I got my
computer up and running and since I live in Silicon Valley, at that time in the late 80's to
early 90's there was a ton of used computer places you could go to. I had no money at that
time, I was literally broke. I was around 18 years old living in my girlfriends house.
She worked a lot so I would just stay in our room, kind of like a hermit. I remember
thinking of turning the closest into a little computer room, hehe.. I got my hands on a
shareware disk and got a modem program. There where these magazines that would come out
every month with all the super sales of computer parts and memory etc. We'd get those and
there would be BBS listings on the back. I'd call them up and start to chat with people and
then I'd see something like @WQ$RKQ#GWCWETEDDAZZXXXZXkkjljl with a bunch of blinking ascii
characters on the screen. I later learned that my modem didn't have CRC correction. I was
only dialing in at 2400 baud. It was so slow but we didn't know any better because that's
what we had. Well BBS's started to get addicting and the good ones were in another area
code.
Ok so I'm not working and getting a $40 phone bill was insane, and also my girlfriends
parents wanted to use the phone so this was becoming a problem. I decided I wanted to get
my own line installed. That was about $150 install fee, and then they couldn't run the line
to her room. So I ran 100 foot telephone line around the house and problem solved. As time
went on I worked at a local aquarium store part time and saved up and bought more computer
parts. Finally got a 386 with 4MB ram and a 14.4K modem. My computer was hot. It had a
Color MAG Innovations monitor and a sound blaster card. Monkey Island was so fun.
So I was seriously hooked on BBS's at the time. We had a message area and we'd read
messages posted by other users. Sometimes you could page the Sysop and they'd break in and
you'd chat with them for awhile. I decided I wanted to run a bbs and downloaded Renegade
Software. Renegade was the staple "Warez" bbs system. I tried OBV/2 but it crashed a lot.
Everything in renegade had to be hacked. One of my users was \\.eazel and he was an ansi
artist. He created the best graphics for my bbs, that was what made a BBS. If it had some
kick ass graphics you wanted in badly. My site was like a art site and warez site. I'd have
all of the latest art packs and warez. Since I had so much software at my disposal I would
try them all out, learn them and delete them when space got tight. I only had like a 40MB
drive.
The thing with BBS was power. You were either a lamer or cool. You were god of your system
and if your users didn't like someone they would be blacklisted all over. Signing up for a
warez site you had to go through the questionnaire and then the next few people that logged
in woujld read and review. If you were lame you were deleted, and if you were cool you were
in. BBS were harsh in that way. What could you bring to the table? Who did you know? and
most of all if you were a Narc!
I would spend almost all my nights hex editing the board. With a hex editor you could
change all the colors and text to the prompts, make it really elite. One mess up and your
whole board was trashed so I'd have to save often. I'd be asleep and here my modem clicking
as some late nighter would be signing on. I was just so hooked I'd always chat with my
visitors. I can remember being so addicted to bulletin boards, it was just so fun to call
all over the place.
Oh yea, to be a cool BBS it had to have a demonic name. This one guy I knew was Grave
Digger and his site was like the Hell Hole or something. It cracks me up now. My BBS was
called Blackrain and it was in the Bay Area (SF). There were some other big ones like ELF
and Dreams of Insanity etc.
The main problem with BBS's was the phone bill. PacBell at that time did not have any
unlimited calling plans like they do now. They were raping everyone. At that time phone
phreaking was the biggest thing because you wanted to call out for free. There was even
such a thing called Local Long Distance. And if your downloading 1MB per 10 minutes that
bill can add up.
When the internet came out you had AOL which was graphical or you could get a netcom
account. Netcom offered direct dialup to unix shells. We started using IRC to transfer
files. In IRC chate you could do a /dcc send filename to whoever and it would send the
files right into their home directory. From there you had to use your modem to download the
files. IRC transfers were like lighting fast. I once got a copy of office in my shell
account within minutes.
IRC was worse than BBS. You had assholes from all around the world to get into the cool
chat rooms you had to be let in. Most people once they got in they would just idle to show
they were cool. IRC just became so impersonal I had a love hate relationship for it. In
one aspect you wanted to be accepted and "Elite" and while the other aspect you were just
pleasing other people for no good reason. I remember the guys from PWA wanted me to use
some stolen credit cards to buy some shell accounts. That's when I said enough is enough,
I'm cool. This isn't worth going to jail for. That fad finally faded for me. All those
long nights on the computer, chatting, hacking and having fun. One of the best times of my
life being alone. My s/n was Goldsmith. I always like Gold so I just took that and my last
name that's how I got my handle.
- Ryan Smith (2012/09)